Could this be a good use case for cryptocurrency?
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Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?
61–70 of 224 posts
Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?
#62Could this be a good use case for cryptocurrency?
For which part?
Main complaint in article is that major companies should employ people from OSM community. But inability to transfer money is not something blocking Microsoft or FB here.
Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?
#63If all open source software had new license terms tomorrow that said "no commercial use unless you pay me a license fee", they'd just stop using open source. Using it is a business calculation. If you don't get support and you have to pay for it, you might as well pay for proprietary software that you can get support from. And maybe that's fine! Maybe we shouldn't let companies use the software at all . But that woul…
The (strict) philosophy of open source isn't to take money from its adopters, or to prevent them to monetise, it is to spread the openness to serve humanity by having the intelligence reused and built upon rather than energy wasted on replicating and competing. Competition is a waste, contrary to the misinformation we have been subjected to, it only serves a minority at the expense of everyone else. Collaboration off…
My understanding of the philosophy of open source is different. I believe it was always more fundamentally about freedom and specifically encouraging a marketplace of ideas.
Going back to the early days with Stallman and the GPL it was about making software more transparent and empowering users. You can see how something is implemented, modify how it works for your own needs, etc, just like if you were to buy a physical machine like a car.
Competition is not a waste, it is the means by which free actors improve society. In theory there if there's one provider of everything, there is less waste, and that may be true for certain periods of time but not in general. Power structures ossify, become bloated, corrupt, and inefficient. If you have a monopoly, even if it's the most benevolent, open one in the world, the incentives to improve are diminished. The most powerful incentive to improvement is the threat of those you depend on for money, power, or status, freely choosing against you, which requires competition. You need people that are able to look at the status quo and decide that they can do it better, creating the next generation of whatever it may be.
The OSS community has lots of competition and is better for it. Linux competes with the BSDs and private OSs. There's tons of distros building off each other trying new ideas. Forking is expected. It doesn't always lead to the next great project but it moves the needle.
Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?
#64I struggle with contributing to open source but in a different context. In my opinion, the video games industry is information sparse on high quality software engineering practices, for whatever reason (NDAs, language/culture, etc). I am already authoring content that basically imports DevOps practices and experiences I have from my day job into a video games context. I believe practitioners have an edge over non-pra…
I have written some (obscure) open-source software and have contributed to open-source code-bases. I can say that if you are doing it for some kind of recognition, then you are doing it for the wrong reason. I _do_ think that you (and many others) would be worthy of recognition and appreciation, but most people are far too busy optimizing their careers and chasing the dollar to actually invest the time and effort needed to share some of the spotlight with you. Also, so much of our (humanity's) software stack is open source that we would need to share the spotlight with hundreds of people out there.
Most people write open-source for material reasons -- it lets them bring some of their own code into a new workplace, with minimal employer resistance. Also, many people will try to open-source the tooling they built at work so that they can then take that tooling with them to a new employer (avoiding the duplication of effort and potential legal issues).
All of the open-source code that I wrote for non-material reasons, I wrote it because I thought it was fun to write, and I open sourced it because others might find it interesting or useful. But I never expected any kind of recognition (let alone compensation).
In feudal Japan, poets would write poetry anonymously (not pseudonymously), and many historians and scholars debate which known poet wrote which poem. The fact that these works of art are not attached to any author's ego or name, does not diminish their beauty after all these centuries -- arguably this characteristic amplifies and elevates the work beyond the history of people, to the history of ideas and concepts. At the end of the day, we are just transient conduits for concepts. The notion that a person deserves to have "more" for their ideas and concepts and artistry, is as shameful as the notion that artists deserve to starve for not slavishly serving the whims of the market.
Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?
#65I struggle with contributing to open source but in a different context. In my opinion, the video games industry is information sparse on high quality software engineering practices, for whatever reason (NDAs, language/culture, etc). I am already authoring content that basically imports DevOps practices and experiences I have from my day job into a video games context. I believe practitioners have an edge over non-pra…
I figure I will be forgotten entirely within a generation or three, but maybe my minor contributions to open source software will help folks now and in the future solve problems. That coupled with the fact that I am standing on the shoulders of giants (whose names I mostly don't know) makes the choice to release my code freely easy.
As a bonus, the more eyes there are on my code the more likely it is that I get good feedback, feedback I use to improve my skills.
Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?
#66Could this be a good use case for cryptocurrency?
No.
Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?
#67I’m curious to know if the companies that use OSM actually contribute back? Like fixing all the wrong/malicious data.
Yes, it is mentioned many times in the article itself; several paragraphs in fact. Here is a few: > Apple uses OSM data in parts of the world where their commercial partners don’t provide data. They are reasonably good at fixing and contributing data to OSM in those regions. They employ nobody in the OSM community. > Microsoft Bing uses OSM in several regions, and is slowly moving from it’s traditional providers to O…
Klokantech uses OSM data as a base data for their Maptiler platform.
They maintains and contributed to some open source tool and they are hosting (for free) some open source maps.
Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?
#68I've enjoyed Google Maps for many years and never paid for it. Apple MapKit appears to be free. I improve the experience for others when I help improve the maps and in turn my experience is improved by the contributions of others. It's costs Google and Apple money to provide the infrastructure for this, which they obtain in various ways such as advertising. It doesn't bother me if someone wants to advertise their sto…
> I've enjoyed Google Maps for many years and never paid for it. You did pay for Google Maps indirectly as you were and still are a product Google sells to advertisers.
I feel like I have derived so much value from Google Maps, especially turn by turn navigation, than I don't even consider the advertisement aspects. I would happily pay a monthly fee to use it.
Before it you had to use paper maps or use those very expensive and crappy Garmin devices.
Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?
#69I've enjoyed Google Maps for many years and never paid for it. Apple MapKit appears to be free. I improve the experience for others when I help improve the maps and in turn my experience is improved by the contributions of others. It's costs Google and Apple money to provide the infrastructure for this, which they obtain in various ways such as advertising. It doesn't bother me if someone wants to advertise their sto…
> I've enjoyed Google Maps for many years and never paid for it. You did pay for Google Maps indirectly as you were and still are a product Google sells to advertisers.
Google doesn't need you to pay, they only need you to do your thing using Android, Chrome, Google Analytics, Google Search, Google Maps, etc. They will monetize on your usage. I'm OK with the concept, but the implementation ethics can be, to put it gently, debatable - most of the time people are not aware of the privacy implications.
Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?
#70I have tried providing a correction to OSM, they never got moderated or integrated.
But there is a local club because they used the email address I provided to invite me.
I don’t think I want to spend time doing it again.